Dorfkirche Lankwitz, Medieval church in Lankwitz, Berlin, Germany.
The Dorfkirche Lankwitz is a fieldstone church with a short, nearly square nave, a long choir and a semicircular apse, all at the same eaves height. Its west portal is a round-arched opening from the 13th century; the blocked south choir door still shows its stone frame. A timber roof turret with a weathercock sits on the west gable.
Lankwitz was first mentioned in 1239, when the margraves of Brandenburg Johann I and Otto III gave the village to the Benedictine convent of St. Marien in Spandau. The convent, which held the patronage until the Reformation, soon had a fieldstone church built, probably before 1250 and likely replacing a wooden church. A major rebuilding followed in 1757; after destruction in the air raids of the night of 23 to 24 August 1943, the church was rebuilt with slight changes and consecrated on 16 December 1956.
The church's long choir points to the Benedictine nuns of St. Marien in Spandau, who held the patronage until the Reformation and needed extra seating. Inside, the altar picture is the 1550 epitaph of Berlin mayor Joachim Reich, who died in 1540, showing the Crucifixion; it is a loan from the Marienkirche. A chalice of 1589 and a brass baptismal bowl from around 1500 survive.
The church stands in the old village core of Lankwitz in Berlin's Steglitz-Zehlendorf district. The west portal with its round arch is the original 13th-century entrance, set in the west gable; the bricked-up south portal, the former priest's door, is still visible on the south wall of the choir. The interior is entered through this west door.
The unusually long chancel points to the Benedictine nuns of St. Marien in Spandau, who held the patronage until the Reformation and needed extra seating for their choir stalls. The masonry courses do not run continuously between apse, chancel and nave, showing the three parts were built one after another.
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